Vacation
by Clara Barton
Summary: Noin returns from Mars for a vacation. Day 9 of 31 Days of Smut For Luvsanime02
A/N: Sally and Noin on vacation for Luvsanime02. It's a… different kind of smut than the others I've written.

A/N 2: I live for reviews. Even if it's just "loved it" - every review makes my day and inspires me to write more.

A/N 3: A special and enormous thanks to Maevemauvaise who, in addition to exchanging all caps frantic typing with me is taking on the dubious honor of beta reading for me. THANK you so much.

Warnings: angst, smut, fluff

Pairings: Sally x Noin

 _March 9: Vacation_

Peonies.

Lucrezia had never cared much for the ways things smelled - had rigorously trained herself to _ignore_ the way things smelled after living in military barracks for so long. Overpowering men's cologne and aftershave, underpowered deodorant and unwashed bodies, charred flesh. She had forced herself to, if not completely ignore, then at least not _think_ about the way things and people smelled.

But peonies and sunshine and a cool breeze after a storm. That's what Sally smelled like when Lucrezia inhaled at the juncture between her slim neck and strong shoulders, when she trailed kisses up her leg and her thigh before burying herself in the heady aroma of her sex.

Sally was redemption and forgetting and remembering and rebirth. Sally was smooth, firm skin and faint scars and warmth. Sally was the past and the future. Sally was Lucrezia's anchor when the mother of a child, a boy too young to have even experienced life, who had died under her watch at Lake Victoria thanked Lucrezia for her service. Sally was strong fingers carding her hair and holding her close while she cried late at night.

Sally was breakfast in bed and arguing over who ate the heel. Sally was laughing at videos of baby animals. Sally was home.

A home that Lucrezia hadn't seen in two years and two hundred and twelve days. A home so far away, so distant from Mars that thinking about her felt more like a fantasy than a memory.

A vacation, Duo Maxwell, the scruffy miscreant shipped off to Mars under her supervision for his reparations service, had called it when they got the orders recalling them to Earth with the next supply freighter for pysch evals. He'd been sarcastic, as he always was - as soon as they hit dirt they both knew he would be manacled and carted off to a secure Preventers facility for the duration of their two month stay on Terra. But that's what happened when you spent six months tracking down former OZ officers and slaughtering them after everyone else declared themselves a pacifist. So Lucrezia didn't feel bad for him, didn't listen as he tried to cajole her into helping him attempt an escape when the transport picked them up at the spaceport to drive them to HQ. She barely even thought to lift a hand and return his farewell wave when Barton met them and took him into custody. She didn't even listen to Maxwell's attempts at banter, completely rebuffed by his silent former comrade, as they walked away.

All she could think about were peonies.

Peonies and sunshine and a cool breeze after a storm because Sally stood in the car park, arms crossed over her chest, soft smirk on her face, blue eyes a homing beacon for Lucrezia to follow.

She didn't run into her arms, didn't do anything so unprofessional or foolish as throw herself at a fellow officer in broad daylight, under full surveillance, with Maxwell's armed guards watching. She managed a walk that was just this side of sedate and she only let herself touch Sally's hand for the briefest of seconds when she passed over her duffel for Sally to put in the trunk of the car.

The drive to Sally's apartment was longer than Lucrezia remembered - had Sally moved or had nearly three years dulled Lucrezia's memory?

She found herself anxious and restless and unable to speak. Nine hundred and forty two days of silence had built a wall between them and Lucrezia struggled to find the words to break it down.

But then Sally was parking the car, was grabbing her bag and opening the door and they were in the apartment. The same apartment. Plants everywhere, the smell of life so strong it took her aback. It was so different. So very different than Mars.

Sally locked the door and set down the duffel and her keys and she laced their fingers together and tugged Lucrezia into the bedroom.

Sally undressed her, her surgeon's fingers so confident and nimble as they worked free buttons and unfastened zippers, as they smoothed layer after layer of fabric away and until Lucrezia stood before her completely naked.

Sally looked her over with a critical eye, palm tracing over the hollow curve of her stomach while she frowned but said nothing, fingers grazing the greenish-yellow bruise on a sample packet being poorly stored and falling on her a few weeks ago.

"Bath or shower?" Sally asked.

"Shower."

Their first words to each other that weren't recorded in almost a thousand days. It made Lucrezia smile and Sally responded to the expression with a smile of her own and a hand on her cheek.

"There you are," Sally sighed and leaned forward to press a soft kiss to her lips. "Do you want company or do you want me to cook something for you?"

Lucrezia grabbed her hand when she stepped away. "Definitely company."

Sally grinned and let Lucrezia undress her. Her hands weren't as steady as Sally's, her fingers fumbling a little in her haste to touch Sally's skin, to feel the strong, steady beat of her heart.

Showers on Mars were lukewarm and timed - seven minutes and then the water unit cut off. Lucrezia had never had a problem with it, nor had most of the crew stationed at their outpost but Maxwell, with his meter long braid of hair, had usually walked out of the unit with soap still in his hair and threatening murder with enough vehemence that most people went running in the opposite direction. He'd cut his hair, hacked it off in a fit of pique and dropped it on the quartermaster's desk without a word.

So standing under the hot water, feeling the deliciously strong pressure against her skin, felt decadent to Lucrezia. It never even occurred to her that Sally intended to do more than just _bathe_ her until Sally kissed her again, water running into their open mouths for a moment before Sally smirked and turned them away from the spray.

Lucrezia was still covered in soap, her skin slippery and smooth and she realized she smelled like peonies. Like Sally.

Sally, whose hands were caressing Lucrezia's breasts and whose thigh was pressed between Lucrezia's legs, bracing her against the cool tile of the shower wall. Sally, who took advantage of Lucrezia's gasp of pleasure to sweep her tongue deep into Lucrezia's mouth, scouring her with heat and passion. Sally, who laughed when Lucrezia moaned and spread her legs wider, when she tried to rub against Sally's leg, when she whimpered and begged for more.

Sally, whose fingers knew, even after all this time, exactly how to touch her, how much pressure to apply, how fast to stroke back and forth, how to plunge two fingers into her at just the right moment. Sally, who whispered into Lucrezia's ear, who told her how beautiful she was, how much she had missed her touch, her lips, her cries of pleasure as she felt delicious pressure build and build and build until it was too much. Sally, who held her and kissed her as Lucrezia fell apart in her arms.

Sally who, at the end of Lucrezia's two month "vacation" took her back to Preventers HQ and shoved a bottle of the peony soap into her duffel over Lucrezia's protests.

"If you think Barton didn't load down Maxwell with contraband then you're a fool, Lucy," Sally argued. "Take it. Think of me."

"I don't need it to think of you," Lucrezia pointed out, but she stopped trying to return the bottle.

It would make those seven tepid minutes every other day on Mars better, would make them feel more like home. More like Sally.

As they stepped apart, as they said goodbye again, Lucrezia breathed deeply, savoring that last taste of peonies and sunshine and a cool breeze after a storm.

-o-

Endnote: Hey! If you're enjoying the 31 Days of Smut, or just my writing in general, check out the ebook I published on Amazon it's cheap (or free if you have Kindle Unlimited) and super smutty. It's Ponyboy by C. Barton.


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